My father was a quiet man when I was growing up.
He wasn’t cruel or cold, he wasn’t neglectful, he was just quiet. When he did speak, he did so in a mild, soft-spoken tone, the audio equivalent of tofu. It was the voice of a man who just hated stepping on anyone’s toes.
Mum died during childbirth, so he had to bring me up all on his own. Looking at my life now, I’d like to believe that he did a good job laying the groundwork for the person I’d go on to become - I think that’s a fact a lot of people like to ignore. I had the privilege of being shaped by my childhood, for some people adult life is just the process of getting over it.
We waste too much time in life paying for mistakes we never made, and forgetting or overwriting relationships we never asked for.
I’m a truly lucky individual to be able to say that this isn’t the case for me.
Like most people, my childhood is a blur, with a few notable snapshots floating at the surface of the mist. The older you are, the thicker that mist gets, until all the photos of the past look faded and distorted. It’s not a long story that I’m here to tell today, but it’s one that warrants telling before the snapshot fades.
When I was ten years old, I suffered from a series of inexplicable nightmares. The primary reason for the “inexplicable” label is the fact that I was still awake when they were happening.
I’m sure a lot of you are already getting ready to tell me that I was suffering from sleep paralysis at the time, but that isn’t the case. I could get up, move, and interact with the room around me. I even made several mad runs to my bedroom door to escape the nightmares that enveloped me, to no avail.
That’s because, as it turned out, my nightmares were real.
It always played out the same way: a shadow with no light to cast it would slither up my bedroom wall, twisted and gaunt like a poorly-made scarecrow. Two burning cigarette-tip-eyes would sizzle into life, and a low growl would come rattling out of the darkness.
After that, things got worse.
“Stupid boy,” The shadow would hiss, in the malignant tone of a bitter old man, “Little fuck-up. Raised to be a soft little goddamn pussy.”
These were words I’d only heard the bad kids on the playground say, and to hear them spat at me in such an authoritative squall struck the fear of God into me. It’s a funny turn of phrase to use, looking back, because that thing - that monster - couldn’t have been further from God.
So many nights bled away, listening to the monster, praying for sleep. I was too afraid to tell my dad - not because I thought he’d react badly, but because I was worried about putting the monster on his shoulders too. He’d had so much work to do after mum died, I couldn’t bear to make him worry about this too.
It was almost like the nexus of phobia and insomnia - I couldn’t sleep, and I was scared shitless on a nightly basis.
“Baby.”
“Fuck-up.”
“Coward.”
“Pussy.”
I’d heard more venom in the words of the monster over those few weeks than I had in the entirety of my life up to that point. It took its toll, definitely: I lost sleep, ate less, withdrew myself from my friendship groups and my studies in school. The words of that long, cruel shadow were destroying my life, piece by piece.
Eventually, something had to give, so I walked up to my dad as he ate breakfast and drank his morning coffee.
“Dad?” I asked, suddenly noticing the tremor in my voice.
He took a slow sip of his coffee and looked up at me, with a subdued smile. It was just like him: measured, reasonable. He barely ever showed in extreme emotion in either direction.
“Dad, I’ve got something to tell you. Something bad.”
There was a flare of recognition in his eyes, as he grabbed a chair by its back and untucked it.
“Come sit up here, son. Tell me about it.” He said, taking another slow sip of his coffee.
I did as he asked, trying to stay calm. I felt as though the monster had gotten to me somehow, had fundamentally changed the way my brain operated. It’d conditioned me to be meek, quiet, docile.
“I have problems, in my room,” I said, feeling that tell-tale tremor again, “I didn’t want to tell you, because I didn’t want to worry you. You might have not believed me, and thought I was crazy, and…and…”
By then, I was crying. Hot tears glazed my reddened cheeks. But there was something else; I felt my dad’s big, strong hands wrap around my shoulders, as he gazed lovingly into my eyes.
“You can tell me anything, son. There’s nothing we can’t sort out together. The problem can seem big, but if you tell me, we can get it solved.”
That shocked me more than anything. This is probably an exaggeration, but it felt like the longest uninterrupted sentence he’d ever said to me. Hearing him articulate like that gave me the strength to tell my story.
And I did. I told him the whole thing.
Once I was done, my dad gave a long, quivering sigh. He was crying too.
There’s something unsettling about that, seeing your father cry. He’s meant to dry your tears, he’s meant to be too strong to cry. That’s a silly notion all kids have, until they realise grownups are just kids who got better at pretending they have a clue what’s going on.
“What’s wrong, dad?” I asked.
He looked up at me, trying to maintain a weak smile.
“My dad…he wasn’t very nice, son. He was a really scary guy. He used to drink, he used to say such terrible things. Sometimes, when he got really angry, he’d even hit your grandmother and I. As I got older, I got better at fighting him off, but in the end he’d always win,” Dad said, a note of anger rising in his voice, “There was nobody bigger and meaner than your grandfather, son. I spent my nights listening to him chew out your grandmother, and I just wished that he’d die. I wished that he’d have a heart attack and just drop dead, or crash his car on the way home.”
Dad sighed and shook his head again.
“Imagine that. Wishing death on your own father. Well, I got my wish before I ever met your mother. He had what’s called a brain aneurysm, which is like a burst blood vessel in your brain. The doctors told me he wouldn’t even have had time to realise he was dying,” Dad gritted his teeth in what seemed like regret during the last part, I think I’ll always remember that, “He was gone. Just like that. And I was so angry, son. So angry. Because I felt like I’d been conned, like he deserved so much worse than that. Cruel, twisted old men don’t deserve those kinds of endings.”
This was the first time dad had ever spoken about grandpa. I didn’t even know I’d had one before then.
“I carried that anger around with me for a while, son. But the thing about anger, is that it’s always just fear that got out of hand. My dad, he was afraid of being small, so he made my mum and I feel small so he could get to feel big. He was nothing but a loser, preying on the weak,” Dad said, “And it took me a while to realise what I was afraid of, son. I was afraid of turning into him, especially after your mother died. I got so upset, you see, and all that fear and sadness could have turned to anger if I let it. But I wouldn’t let it, because I’m not him.”
At this, his lower lip began to quiver. That, a person at any age always knows, is what precipitates the final breakdown.
And, sure enough, it did.
In moments, my quiet, reserved dad was a sobbing mess.
“I’m not him, goddamnit. I’m not him. I’m not him,” He spluttered through his tears, “I’d never hurt you like that, son. I’d never hurt anyone like that.”
He took a moment to calm down, wiping his tears away on a kitchen towel, before turning back to me.
“And I’m not gonna let him hurt you either, son. I know it’s him - the things he said to you are the same things he said to me. I don’t know how he’s still here, whatever ugly, black stain of him still exists on the world, but that stops here.”
Dad leaned forward and pulled me into his embrace.
“You’re my son, not his. That old, dead bastard will never say another word to you.”
It didn’t make sense back then, but now I know why my father acted like he did - why he was so quiet, so reserved. He was afraid of ever turning into the monster on the wall - into my cruel, dead grandfather - and he worried that if ever he lost control, if ever he took his eyes off the little emotional dial twitching in his head, the monster in him would come out too.
But he was wrong. There was never any monster in him. My dad was and is the greatest man I ever knew.
That night, as I settled down to sleep, my father sat next to my bed. He held my tiny hand in his great palm, comforting in the way you’d assume God would be. That’s what they were, in the end, God and the Devil - what separated them was how they chose to treat the people inside their power.
Love or malice. That’s all it ever came down to.
When the shadow stretched across the wall, like it always did, I felt my father’s hand tense around mine. Even bathed in all that darkness, he recognised the shape of his father.
“Leave me alone with the boy,” Hissed the shadow, “You’re raising him wrong, Michael. You don’t want him to turn out to be some little limp-wristed pussy, do you? I never would have wanted that for you.”
“What you want doesn’t matter,” My father growled, his voice stronger than steel, “What you want never mattered. You’re just a stupid, hateful old man. You had your goddamn time, now get out of our lives.”
The shadow seemed to warp and undulate against the wall, its red eyes burning brighter.
“You listen to me, dad,” I heard my father say, his voice laced with quiet fury, “This is my house. This is my son. If ever you set another foot in here again, I’ll drag you all the way to hell myself. And that’s a goddamn promise.”
Another long, protracted hiss, like air being let out of a balloon. I dared to open my eyes and see the dark stain of my grandfather evaporate from my wall, leaving the plain, blue paint that’d always been there.
Dad talked a lot more after that. He smiled and laughed and joked an awful lot more after that too. As best as I could tell, he’d finally put that ugly part of his life to rest, and it allowed him to appreciate what he had.
I never saw my grandfather ever again.
It’s been over twenty years since then, and my dad is sadly no longer with us. But, as I tuck my five year old son into his bed and sing him a lullaby, before turning around to leave and looking at the plain, blue paint of his bedroom wall, it occurred to me that the best things in life are the things you only notice when they’re gone.
As I type this, laying in bed next to my beautiful wife, our whole lives and the life of our son ahead of us, I can think of one final sentiment.
Thank you, dad. For everything. For being there for me, for always listening to me, and for giving me the childhood you never had.
For that I, and my son, will always be grateful. *** X